No, it's not embracing home brewers. It's encouraging them to participate in a competition so you can steal the best recipe and then profit from it without fairly compensating the inventor of the recipe. How many homebrewers enter this competition just for fun, then "win" and get their 5,000 dollar check, and then realize that THEIR BEER now belongs to Sam Adams and Sam Adams is profiting in perpetuity on their beer.

If this was a licensing agreement I'd have no problem with it. If there was some kind of part-ownership of the beer itself and the profits therefrom, I'd have no problem with it. But that's not what it is. It's an effort to take advantage of the "Homebrew Cred" that Jim Koch has and outsource their R&D functions to the homebrewing community.

I cannot fathom how you came to the conclusion that Boston Brewing Company needs to outsource their R&D to eager homebrewers. Beer recipes are not some sacred cow - hence the reason so many breweries openly give out their recipes directly to their customers.

For a homebrewer who has invested no money - other than the cost of brewing a batch of beer - how do you think he or she should be more fairly treated than a wad of cash and his or her beer commercially produced and nationally distributed? Free R & D? Really?

I can guarantee you Sam Adams spends more money on their homebrew competitions than they ever recoup in sales.

Back before I was a beer geek...BMC and Heine were what I drank...I didn't like Sam Adams. It tasted weird and bitter.

Now that I'm a homebrewer and beer geek I went to Boston and took the Sam Adams brewery tour. Boston Lager? Meh. Not bad, but kind of plain tasting. It's often the only non-BMC beer you can buy in some restaurants so if it's the only option I'll buy it just to support craft brewing.

I cannot fathom how you came to the conclusion that Boston Brewing Company needs to outsource their R&D to eager homebrewers. Beer recipes are not some sacred cow - hence the reason so many breweries openly give out their recipes directly to their customers.

For a homebrewer who has invested no money - other than the cost of brewing a batch of beer - how do you think he or she should be more fairly treated than a wad of cash and his or her beer commercially produced and nationally distributed? Free R & D? Really?

I can guarantee you Sam Adams spends more money on their homebrew competitions than they ever recoup in sales.

Forget R&D. Forget I said it. It was a rhetorical flourish that is clearly distracting from my point.

Yes, I feel that it's entirely unfair to take a home brewers recipe, pay a small one time fee and then sell it forever as your beer without crediting the home brewer in royalty or licensing.

I'm not sure how you're in a position to guarantee anything about Sam Adams financial positions but you sound like you're really really sure. So there's that.

As a question I'd like to know which breweries gives their recipes away? Sierra Nevada and Sam list malt bills and hops, but not in percentage or in any way that constitutes a recipe. No mash profiles are provided either. The reason for that is that they are protecting their intellectual property. Their trade secrets. I agree that even mildly advanced home brewers can deconstruct recipes, but it's just not true that they're "given away".

My bitch in all of this is that Sam doesn't fairly compensate the winners of these competitions. I still feel that way.

Yes, I feel that it's entirely unfair to take a home brewers recipe, pay a small one time fee and then sell it forever as your beer without crediting the home brewer in royalty or licensing.

And for the second time... they don't "sell it forever"... they are special releases that are only produced for a short period of time and the brewer's picture and name are right on the bottle.

... and everyone's point on R&D is that they don't need your, or any of our recipes. They have ZERO need to get their recipes from homebrewers. They do it as fun thing for homebrewers so they someone might be able to walk into a store and buy THEIR beer, with THEIR picture, right on the bottle.

If you don't like the concept of Boston Beer Co making whatever small amount of money they make on these small releases, that's 100% your right and don't enter the competition... but to say this is some grand screw-job that Boston Beer is pulling over on homebrewers so they can steal or profit from recipes is ridiculous.

Jim Koch, as a homebrewer himself, should feel nothing but shame about this.

He is not a homebrewer, that's marketing.

He has a Harvard MBA and law degree and worked for Boston consulting. Before starting Boston beer. He didn't even brew his own beer but hired somebody to formulate a recipe and had it contract brewed out in Ohio.

Harpoon was brewing beer in mass before Sam Adams. Their Boston brewery is just for show and events. .

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Yo, What's Wrong With The Beer We Got? I Mean the Beer we got drank pretty Good Don't It? I Ain't Never Heard nobody complain about the beer we have..... It Drank Pretty Good. Budweiser...What's the name of some of them other beers ?

My bitch in all of this is that Sam doesn't fairly compensate the winners of these competitions. I still feel that way.

So it's not enough that they organize what is now a huge competition, organize all of the judges, provide the space, parking etc for all of the judges, interupt their normal production schedule in the brewery, go through the Feds to get approvals for the labels, R&D the actual recipes of the winners up to scale for a large brewery, actually BREW the beer, bottle it, promote it and then push it through their distribution channels with the brewers picture and name right on the bottle... you think that's unfair and Boston Beer should cut the winner a check too??

Because they're making so much cash off of the 20 bbl run of some guy's Skullplitter clone???

Jim Koch, as a homebrewer himself, should feel nothing but shame about this.

He is not a homebrewer, that's marketing.

He has a Harvard MBA and law degree and worked for Boston consulting. Before starting Boston beer. He didn't even brew his own beer but hired somebody to formulate a recipe and had it contract brewed out in Ohio.

Harpoon was brewing beer in mass before Sam Adams. Their Boston brewery is just for show and events. .

__________________
Yo, What's Wrong With The Beer We Got? I Mean the Beer we got drank pretty Good Don't It? I Ain't Never Heard nobody complain about the beer we have..... It Drank Pretty Good. Budweiser...What's the name of some of them other beers ?